"POLY TICKS" all things political

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oldsalt1
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by oldsalt1 »

Moon please don't give up that is what this blog is for.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

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oldsalt1 wrote:Moon please don't give up that is what this blog is for.
If you want folks to contribute then stop feigning offence any time that somebody floats an idea that you disagree with.

The world is unfortunately a messy place, and bad behaviour on folks' part only makes it messier. The bad behaviour on the part of politicians merely points up that they're politicians and not statesmen. What's worse is that the mess in the Alabaster City is all for show and it's grating on the general public who, for the most part I'm fairly sure, wish the children would behave.

That the president sulked out of what was an important meeting was unsurprising, mainly because nothing is going to actually get done on the much-neglected infrastructure of the nation simply because the money to actually fix the problem is not available and will not become so without real reforms at the Federal level. So the quick answer is to play up the passions on the "two sides" to distract them from the actual issue at hand which is that the place is simply falling apart at the seams for lack of basic maintenance nevermind actual investment in the future. It's disgraceful.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by trainspotter48 »

Looking from this side of the 'pond', there certainly appears to be trouble at the top, but we have our own problems here too.

I heard a comment many years ago along the lines of 'The Headmaster should keep them in control' regarding our Parliament. Things don't appear any better today.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

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oldsalt1 wrote:Moon please don't give up that is what this blog is for.
Oohhkaaay.... but it will have to wait until I have more time. Not like it matters much, I'm certain my views on matters will change nary a single mind. I acknowledge that this will be.... a complete waste of time on my part, and I've got the rest of the day to determine if such an fruitless endeavor is worth sacrificing an hour of my life too.

But to be quite frank, I'm am NOT saying that Democrats or other politicians are Christ like, but then again, most Democrats don't hide behind the bible these days. Trump appealed to the deeply religious among us, he claimed to be a godly man. Based on my study of scripture and particularly the teachings of Christ...I just don't see it. Not that that's his fault... everyone, after all, falls short of that standard, but then again not everyone carries such an ego, seems hell bent on division of the people, etc.

It's not that I think that he thinks he is God, personally I think he doesn't give a crap about you Christian's and your religion. He just realizes the only way to the top is to proclaim allegiance to God all mighty, and he has played that card very well. Now he is worshipped as the second coming.

The Christian faith is simply a playing card to these politicians, and the outright unChristlike rhetoric of Trump proves it. It saddens me because I thought the faith was stronger than that. It scares me because so many people I have respected in the past turned out to be weak after all, when it came to standing up for what's right... regardless of whose ego gets bruised in the process.

My comment was the recognize my lifted heart upon seeing Jim's post. It gave me a glimpse of hope. I don't even know where Jim stands politically, he may support Trump for all I know, I simply observed him have the audacity to call out a man in a high office acting in a very abrasive and unChrist-like manner.

If he (Trump) is going rule over 300 million people, and do so in the name of God, he needs to set a higher standard. His behavior to date has been irrational, combative, unreasonable, egotistical, and childlike. He does this to divide, he does this to cause confusion. Such as it is with the devil.... just sayin'.

More to follow, but I need to get on the dinosaur so I can properly format my comments.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

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Furthermore, to be forbidden or discouraged from speaking ill of an elected official, be it the president or otherwise smacks of totalitarianism and is something you'd expect from a state like North Korea.

Jenn will attest that I was very critical of Obama as well as other presidents, just for different reasons.

So by all means... feel free to harp on whatever Democrat or other politician you wish, feel free to proclaim that Trump is the greatest man who ever was if that's your opinion, just don't get bent out of shape if others have different mindsets.

The office of the president does not elevate its occupant above accountability, if anything such office should be scrutinized at every opportunity. The office is after all responsible for all of our lives in some form or another.

I mean what did Trump expect this to be...? A game show? Well it's not. This is real life and these are real people he's toying with... not paid contestants.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by Uncle Al »

There is a powerful message here, no matter WHO is the POTUS.
Painting of POTUS and Dems JPG 2019-05-24.jpg
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by oldsalt1 »

Moon I never said that anyone was forbidden from making comments about the president or other elected official.

My only discouragement was from talking about it on a non political thread. If you want some more info about thread drift. I know someone you can talk to.

I am sorry moon I have been a member of the café since mid 2016 I do not remember you ever publishing a single disparaging remark about Past President Obama.

My final comment was never directed towards you. I stated that if the only way you can discuss politics is with constant personal attacks I don't want to hear your comments no matter what kind of a thread it is
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

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Uncle Al wrote:There is a powerful message here, no matter WHO is the POTUS.
The painter got the image wrong: all of them should be standing on the flag -- every last one of 'em, all cuddled up. They're all on the same team. It's just a pity that the team they represent isn't the citizenry.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by Fred in Skirts »

While my personal opinion matters little in the grand scheme of things there is but one way to change the way things are. :twisted:

We tried it once before and it did not work then and I do not think it will work now either. For one there always seems to be the nature of the men and women of all governments world wide to screw everything up. :evil:

Personally the last president I thought was worth holding the office was George Washington. It has gone down hill ever since. :D

God save the Office of the President!! :)

Don't worry be happy!!!
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by Ray »

Here are my perceptions of US presidents from afar.

I wasn’t convinced by Carter. With hindsight, he did okay, and he’s an amazing human being.

I liked Reagan. With hindsight, he probably did reasonably well. Always seemed to be a decent person. Yes, he was good.

I found George Bush faceless; bland. Neither bad nor good. Just forgettable. Nothing has changed that view. Mitigating factor? Good on Kuwait.

I liked Bill Clinton at first but that had changed by the time he left office. I’m cool on him now. He was okay in office. Goofed up internationally over Kosovo.

I despised GW Bush. A little man with a bully complex and a pea for a brain. I thought he wrecked the global reputation of the US - but in hindsight, he was a rank amateur. However, I see him now as a decent man with views that simply differ from mine. I’d enjoy a beer with him. As long as we didn’t talk politics!

Obama, I loved. Hearing him with that speech on winning, I was in tears. A black man as president? Just amazing. Throughout his tenure, I thought he did well, but with some real blunders. His emotion at the psychotic gun lobby and their reaction to the multiple shootings was, I hoped, the beginning of change. Sadly not. My views of him and his wife haven’t changed. Wonderful people in my view. Gravitas and dignity.

And then Trump, the man who made Dubya look like Solomon. One word? Revulsion. The UK and Europe despises him.

There you are! Just my view. That’s all.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by beachlion »

With my Green Card, I'm not allowed to vote. But the US government has no problems asking me to pay taxes. My influence on the outcome of the elections are mainly through advice to my wife and her friends.
Nevertheless I have some universal advice when it comes to elect a person. I once heard it somewhere many years ago but I think it is still valid. I even send it as a letter to the editor of my local newspaper, the Morning Call.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by Jim »

As I understand it, we are free to condemn and insult politicians all we want on this thread, but never condemn their supporters. Does that sound right and fair?
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

Post by crfriend »

Advance warning: This is long and contains some highly-unpopular thoughts and theories. If you have a thin skin or are easily "offended", change the channel.
Ray wrote:Here are my perceptions of US presidents from afar.
Fascinating, and thanks for sharing. I'll add my reactions, then and now for contrast. The astute will note my change of thought processes over time and may glean some insight as to why I do not believe that the USA is a republic any longer.
I wasn’t convinced by Carter. With hindsight, he did okay, and he’s an amazing human being.
In the late 1970s I absolutely detested Carter; I thought him to be a two-bit redneck hick. He had none of Nixon's foreign policy and helped restart the Cold War. Nowadays, I view Carter quite sympathetically as a great and honourable human being, but who was absolutely overwhelmed by the office and I am saddened that he's going to go down in history as a largely ineffectual president. He gave it his all, and that's all we can ask of anybody. I have quite a bit of fondness for Carter now.
I liked Reagan. With hindsight, he probably did reasonably well. Always seemed to be a decent person. Yes, he was good.
Reagan scared the living snot out of me at the time. Recall that Carter had largely re-enabled the draft and I was then 19 -- prime age to be plucked from my nascent career to get sent to some random part of the world to get my arse shot off. Plainly in the early stages of senility when elected, the big question was whether he was going to declare war on the world or on the United States. He did the latter, in economic form. It was under Reagan that the United States started actively penalising wage-earners and rewarding gamblers and speculators who made their nut on other people's money. Tax rates soared for wage-earners. He presided over two economic panics (to use the old 1800s term), one of which wrecked my previously very-prosperous state. This was where the brakes were quietly let off on the train that would achieve runaway speed in the 2000s. His presidency also marked be beginning of the rise of the neo-con and the reactionary. Another note is that shortly after the second big panic, the Soviet Union spontaneously devolved into its modern oligarchical form following a bankruptcy caused by the restart of the Cold War. The US followed suit about 15 minutes later but nobody noticed because the citizenry were too stressed out over basic matters like job-security and where the next pay-check would come from.
I found George Bush faceless; bland. Neither bad nor good. Just forgettable. Nothing has changed that view. Mitigating factor? Good on Kuwait.
Bush I could have reversed the damage that Reagan inflicted on the country -- but didn't. He could have repudiated what he termed in an earlier election as "Voodoo Economics" but didn't. It was here that I began to smell a rat. At least Bush I was intelligent enough to listen to his military advisors and cut short the war with Iraq because there was no conceivable exit strategy. Bush I was a failure as a president.
I liked Bill Clinton at first but that had changed by the time he left office. I’m cool on him now. He was okay in office. Goofed up internationally over Kosovo.
William Clinton was the last potentially renegade president we'll ever see. He tried invoking the memory of the Progressive Era and Theodore Roosevelt who in essence betrayed his own class to make the country better for everybody when he went after the very sore issue of health-care where the US was (and still remains) the only so-called developed country on the face of the globe without a comprehensive health care system for its citizens -- and he got hamstrung for it. Ineffective at best. But at least a lot of jokes got told.
I despised GW Bush. A little man with a bully complex and a pea for a brain. I thought he wrecked the global reputation of the US - but in hindsight, he was a rank amateur. However, I see him now as a decent man with views that simply differ from mine. I’d enjoy a beer with him. As long as we didn’t talk politics!
This was a man who was president in name only, the real power being Dick Cheney and a bunch of neo-con advisors. When I think of this period of time I invariably ask the question, "Show me where in the Constitution of The United States of America it provides for operating the country as a regency!" His first two terms were an utter disaster. First there was the debacle of 2001 in which Al Queda was handed victory on a gold platter when the US government cracked down hard on civil liberties, then he managed to absolutely squander all the emotional and moral support offered from the rest of the globe. There was an un-winnable war when Dubya needed to "one-up his pappy" that cost god-only-knows how much in lives, treasure, and lost reputation. Then there was yet another economic panic that damned near pulled the entire Western world down with it.
Obama, I loved. Hearing him with that speech on winning, I was in tears. A black man as president? Just amazing. Throughout his tenure, I thought he did well, but with some real blunders. His emotion at the psychotic gun lobby and their reaction to the multiple shootings was, I hoped, the beginning of change. Sadly not. My views of him and his wife haven’t changed. Wonderful people in my view. Gravitas and dignity.
Obama was -- and remains -- precisely the only presidential candidate I have ever voted for in an affirmative sense. Quite honestly, after the prior shameful eight years I bought into the "hope and change" mantra -- and listening to the man speak after eight years of unintelligible grunts was a joy. Unfortunately his eight years was, from a policy perspective, another eight years of Dubya. About two years into Dubya's third term I started doing a detailed "Black Box Analysis" on the inner workings of the US government. What I arrived at was as disgusting a model of the inner workings (which are carefully hidden and where in view heavily obfuscated) as can possibly be had that I hate to this very day, but which is almost 100% accurate in predicting future events as they arise: the USA as an oligarchy run by obscenely rich folks like Trump (save that Trump likely isn't really rich enough to count and is merely "on the payroll") entirely devoid of the ravages of ethics.
And then Trump, the man who made Dubya look like Solomon. One word? Revulsion. The UK and Europe despises him.
Trump is the perfect exemplar of the oligarchical model -- a possibly degenerate but definitely spoilt child that hasn't done anything useful in his life. When one hears clinicians making remarks about pathological narcissism one tends to take notice. This is what the policies of the Reagan era have produced. Isn't it wonderful and something to be proud of?
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

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oldsalt1 wrote:Ok I'll toss this into the pie. Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful Democrat in our government today Yet only 275, 292 people ever voted for her.
In N.C., the most powerful politician is Gerry Mander. For Congress, the total number of votes cast for Democrats exceeded the total number of votes cast for Republicans by about 11%, yet ten of thirteen NC Congressional Representatives are Republicans. ‘Splain that...without blaming Hillary and Obama, please.

Then explain how any party can continue to support a politician who took an eight second video and stretched it to eleven seconds in order to make a lame attempt to embarrass an opponent. Are Republicans really stupid enough to swallow that? If so, that’s truly scary. That was the single most immature and juvenile thing I have EVER seen a politician do. How any party can still embrace such a sack of s—t is beyond me. Either the GOP has fully abandoned any semblance of ethics, or they have a collective mental age of eleven. Betting not a single Washington Republican has the spine to denounce that stunt.
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Re: "POLY TICKS" all things political

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moonshadow wrote:Oohhkaaay.... but it will have to wait until I have more time. Not like it matters much, I'm certain my views on matters will change nary a single mind. I acknowledge that this will be.... a complete waste of time on my part, and I've got the rest of the day to determine if such an fruitless endeavor is worth sacrificing an hour of my life too.
Well, I think I've made my decision. I have attempted for the last 20 minutes or so to sit down and draft my overall thoughts on the subject matter of this thread. I find I just can not find the motivation. I am not upset or otherwise annoyed at anyone, but for the last 4 years of my membership here, I feel my thoughts on these matters are pretty well known and at this point I'm just rehashing the same old-same old.

Carl's recent post was pretty informative. I myself have only been "adulting" since G.W. Bush. for the most part.

I really didn't know much about politics during his time. The 2000 election was the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in and I gave Bush my vote, mainly because my father suggested it.

Looking back, I'm not sure if it's because Bush was the president during my 20's (young adult), or what, but I seem to have some fond memories of that period. A few things stick out in my head. I was married to my ex when the World Trade Center was attacked. I watched the second plane hit on live TV, along with virtually everyone else I would assume. What followed for the next few weeks was something I've never seen before, and haven't seen since, a mostly united America. A a month or so later my ex would walk out on me and my world would forever change.

Prior to that, I believe I was heading down the road of my father, that is being far right wing. When she left, I realized the traditional world view I held would no longer be applicable to my personal situation. Shortly thereafter I started talking to Jenn (December 2001), and by mid winter 2002 she was living with me in Virginia. We would be married on May 16th 2003, and two weeks later I moved away from my childhood home and to a town about an hour and a half away towards Appalachia.

Jenn and I went through a lot during that time, and we both seemed to find ourselves, and each other in the process. The first five years or so were pretty rough for various reasons, but we made it through all the same, and I recall when Obama was inaugurated, I looked at Jenn, with a bit of nostalgia and said "We've reached the end of this chapter, turn the page. Bush was our president, for better or worse we have been through the best, and the worst of times, under his leadership, and yet somehow came out better for it.".

During the beginning, I had a lot of jobs, but I never went without, and I've never been laid off or fired in my life. In fact, I've remained at my work station while others would get let go. I used to watch them leave when I loaded trucks at a sheet metal plant in Roanoke. When I worked at a plating shop in Dublin, half the plant burned down. I knew for sure I'd get the pink slip (along with everyone else), yet they kept me on to assist with the cleanup. I never lost a single hour of time, never worked a short week.

Those were simple times for me.... maybe.. I'm not so sure. It seems like I went through a lot then, my life now seems rather routine and ordinary by comparison. Sometimes I think that's why I started messing with skirts and witchcraft... I started to get bored! :lol: Now that I'm about done with witchcraft and the skirts are about second nature... I find I'm needing a new spice to try out...

Obama was the first president I really became politically minded with. I'm almost ashamed of some of the stuff I wrote in those days... :oops: I've still got bits and pieces saved on my computer. There were things he did I approved of, and things I opposed too. But then, much like the present day, I was quite the political idiot.

I wonder if I'll look back on some of the stuff I'm writing now in say, ten years time and feel embarrassed.... probably so. I've been all over the place politically speaking during my lifetime. I've been hard right, hard left, and all those places in between. I'm thinking that all my political meanderings aside, I really can't go wrong trying to base my opinions on peace, love, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, etc. Right now I'm getting the feeling that it really doesn't matter what I think or say about anything. Most of the meat space world probably takes me for a flake by this point now. If my meanderings in the Occult weren't bad enough, parading around town for the last 4 years as a girly boy most likely sealed my fate as an American looser. I feel like I should have been a better husband to Jenn, she deserves so much more than I've given her. Same goes for Amber.

But it's done now and I have to live with it. That being said, it is fun and it is possible to survive with a ruined reputation, just a bit more challenging. I figure if child molesters can somehow manage to make it on the outside (once they're released), then I should also manage to find a way.

Huh... I guess I had a lot to say after all... :wink:

I suppose I just wanted to talk... not rant for a change. I apologize for hijacking yer poly tick thread.... But I suppose it is "thread- karma"... considering the other non political threads that turned political... Why not have a political thread turn into a general conversation about life? :lol: 8)
-Andrea
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